Problem: Michael is 5 times as old as Tiffany and is also 32 years older than Tiffany. How old is Michael?
Answer: We can use the given information to write down two equations that describe the ages of Michael and Tiffany. Let Michael's current age be $m$ and Tiffany's current age be $t$ $m = 5t$ $m = t + 32$ Now we have two independent equations, and we can solve for our two unknowns. One way to solve for $m$ is to solve the second equation for $t$ and substitute that value into the first equation. Solving our second equation for $t$ , we get: $t = m - 32$ . Substituting this into our first equation, we get the equation: $m = 5$ $(m - 32)$ which combines the information about $m$ from both of our original equations. Simplifying the right side of this equation, we get: $m = 5m - 160$ Solving for $m$ , we get: $4 m = 160$ $m = 40$.